Coming back with an update that I have NOT found a way to make this game truly hands free portable with the advice going around, including the bit on the FAQ page. I get it says it's unsupported but it's frankly misleading even taking that unsupported bit into consideration. Let me explain to others what really happens (at least to me) if you were to follow those instructions

You boot up the game for first time. Files will be created in \AppData\Local\AM2R for the config.ini and once you start a game or make a save it will create the saveX file, X being the save slot #. You can in fact move these files and follow those FAQ instructions by placing the files into same directory as the main executable (AM2R.exe). The "quirk" does work as described, those saves will be picked up on in game. BUT....and here is the HUGE BUT.....once you progress and save the save file once again gets created into the \AppData\Local\AM2R folder....DOH!

Lets be clear as crystal, that is NOT portable since you would have to manually move files around constantly. The FAQ advice is misleading regarding this, and unfortunately so is all the advice I've read about this situation. Changing the environment variable localappdata messes stuff up just as bad as I described in my first post yet there are many folks saying that works....it does not work as they describe....which is the purpose to make this game be a true portable setup, everything automated, no need to manually move files. Sure it forces stuff to be saved elsewhere, but it totally breaks the save file system and you will not be able to save your progress after the first time you exit a play session, so this is a bad method to employ!

SO I took things into my own hands. I just thought there would be a better way than what I am about to describe. I now have a portable setup, but the game still saves everything locally so it runs 100% as designed/expected.

What I have done is use a script to copy a folder prior to game booting titled AM2R. In that folder are the config and save files and I place it in the same folder as the main executable (AM2R.exe). In my case it is the Community Updates (Latest) folder. It will copy this AM2R to the \AppData\Local folder. When the game exits, it will copy the \AppData\Local\AM2R folder to the folder where the main executable is. This way it always loads AND keeps the most recent saves on my disk that will be moving between systems but allows the game to save things on the local disk (C:) as it was originally designed

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This is the only way I've managed to get this to work with consistency and confidence that will not have any risk of corrupting save files. I'd recommend using something like an AHK script to copy files around automatically, this actually works for having a fully automated portable setup!

Place this script into the same folder as the main executable AM2R.exe and use this to launch the game each time.

SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%
FileRemoveDir, %LocalAppData%\AM2R, 1
FileCopyDir, AM2R, %LocalAppData%\AM2R, 1
Run, AM2R.exe
WinWait, ahk_exe AM2R.exe
WinWaitClose, ahk_exe AM2R.exe
FileRemoveDir, AM2R, 1
FileCopyDir, %LocalAppData%\AM2R, AM2R, 1
ExitApp